The present patent application relates generally to attachment devices for stackable upper and lower component members and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus of attaching a component top tool chest to a bottom tool cabinet.
An assembled tool storage assembly with sliding drawers or opening doors may be constructed of stackable component members. For example, a tool chest with sliding drawers may be placed on top of a tool cabinet, such as a roll cabinet, with casters to form a storage assembly which allows for easy mobility and enhanced storage capacity. As such, based upon this design of stackable component members, an assembled tool storage assembly is quite flexible in that it is customizable by combining different storage units.
To ensure that such an assembly is safe and secure, there needs to be a reliable method of securing the stacked components. Typically this consists of placing a tool chest on top of a tool cabinet, such as a roll cabinet, temporarily removing the sliding drawers of the tool chest, removing any drawers of the tool cabinet, removing any other obstacles, and placing bolts through multiple bolt holes located in the top surface of the tool cabinet which correspond with threaded welds or press nuts in the bottom surface of the tool chest. Each bolt is secured conventionally into the threaded weld or press nuts. As such, the tool cabinet must not only have at least one drawer removed, which can sometimes be quite heavy due to its contents, but the tool chest must also be precisely placed on top of the tool cabinet to ensure that the respective threaded weld or press nuts of the tool chest and the bolt holes of the tool cabinet are properly aligned.
This alignment is generally accomplished with a trial and error process of attempting to place the bolts through the bolt holes combined with manually feeling the threaded weld or press nut locations due to the fact that a visual inspection of the bolt hole areas is difficult due to the locations of the bolt holes and construction configuration of the tool chest and tool cabinet. Furthermore, securing a bolt into a threaded weld or press nut is often difficult because, once the chest is in place, the threaded weld or press nuts may not be readily visible. As can be imagined, this process of securing the component members together can be quite time consuming and frustrating. As a result, the two component members are often not secured or only partially secured.